Vitamin B-12 Deficiency- Ayurveda “Supplementation is not EVERYTHING”.
People today are falling prey to various nutritional deficiencies. Commonest among them is the deficiency in vitamin B 12. This was amongst the “never heard before” illness /condition , only a few years back and now, see , most of us have heard about this.
Have we ever tried thinking as to why there is a sudden surge in these deficiencies?
Is it due to the non-nutritious food ?
Let’s just accept for a moment, that, this is due to lack of nutritious food. But, why is it that, people who have been eating a highly nutritious diet have this or for that matter any other nutritional deficiency?
So , one thing’s for certain, it is not JUST THE NUTRITIOUS FOOD..
A quick recall!!! -As discussed in my earlier posting,
The whole idea of diet and nutrition in ayurveda depends on “how well a person can assimilate what he eats”. That is to say, “how strong or weak the agni or the digestive fire is”.
“Almonds for your brain, Walnuts for your heart” v/s Balanced diet & A”You”rveda for the ” Body “
“Lactose Intolerance”-Why blame milk? Diet & Nutrition- The AYURVEDA way.
PART cannot be WHOLE.
Also, Ayurveda looks at a food substance as a whole, that is in entirety, and this is because ,every food article is formed by a conglomeration of five basic elements (Earth, Fire, Air, Water and Ether) in different proportions, hence the question of isolation/fragmentation does not arise.
To be more precise, ayurveda looks at a substance as whole and is not interested in using them, just for the fragments present in it.
Say, for example- A person needs calcium, so is advised to drink milk, as it is a rich source of calcium. But, milk a food substance, as a whole, has other components in it too, and they too exert their actions on the bodily components. Hence, before we actually prescribe a diet plan, we need to take into consideration as to all the actions of that food article and we shouldn’t be using it just to obtain a fragment of it, which is just not possible. Drug or food article when administered as whole invariably acts as a whole.
AGNI- The vitality within!!!!
If the digestive fire is not proper, any amount of nutritious food will not be able to do any good to you. If your digestive fire is good you don’t really need to pop different pills for various deficiencies, nor you need to stuff yourselves with diet full of vegetables, greens and sprouts to meet the nutritional needs of your body. Some times one wonders how the child of the maid servant is healthier than your own, despite the fact that your child is fed with a better and more nutritious food. Today, You literally have too many things on your plate, with too little to benefit.
Vitamin B-12 deficiency .
Most of the patients say, “I make sure I drink some extra milk and I’m also on supplements”.
Yet, I don’t really feel healthy and active…. I feel lousy, have pins and needles in my soles, my sole hurts and so on. I have been diagnosed as having vit B 12 deficiency and have started using vitamin b 12 rich diet… but,
the symptoms still persist…is what we get to listen very often….
Now, logically, after having supplemented, the signs and symptoms have to go away… Why do they persist??
It is not the food which we have been consuming for ages that needs to take the blame, but, it is our capacity to digest and assimilate the food we eat which needs to be corrected.
If agni, the converting force isn’t functioning optimally, then quite naturally you are not getting enough nutrients. It is for this reason, that you experience these discomforts despite taking loads of supplements or nutritive food. In such a state of weak fire, if you are taking things like fish- seafood etc , just because , you know it is rich in Vitamin B 12, it is only further going to spoil your digestive fire and create chaos in your body,making you further ill.This is number 1.
Second reason why, you shouldn’t be eating fish and stuff like that if you have been diagnosed of Vitamin B 12 deficiency is..
Now, ayurveda’s approach towards nutritional deficiencies is not plain supplementation, but to get to its root cause of the problem, correct it so that, the body becomes capable of metabolising each every particle of the food you eat.
In most cases of vitamin B 12 deficiency the problem lies with the two of the tissues called rasa dhatu and rakta dhatu (lets keep them as rasa and rakta for the time being). Hence, we need to set the things right at these two tissues levels. Mere supplementation / eating a non vegetarian diet surely is not the solution, as it actually adds to the pathology, aggravating the existing problems.
So, before you start trying out all the remedies that you get on google, please think about this. Because every food that you eat, exerts effects as a whole, you never know, consuming a food article just because it serves as remedy for one nutritional deficiency can actually give you some other discomfort, because you do not know the consolidated action of a given food stuff on your entire body.
Remember !!!! PART can NEVER be WHOLE.
LESS is MORE!
The stats say, the world is less hungry than it was in 2000. https://scroll.in/article/854073/worse-than-iraq-bangladesh-and-even-north-korea-these-charts-show-how-hunger-haunts-india
Most of the deficiencies these days ARE NOT born out of intake of non nutritious diet, but is due to EXCESS eating/over nourishment and “indulgence in a wrong diet”.
One thing we need to remember is, nothing can actually replace the food pattern that we have been following for ages. And remember
“You CANNOT replenish or supplement anything to your body, UNLESS you have a GOOD FIRE ELEMENT, not even the fragments”.
Enjoy the food that you have been eating. Also, please pay attention on preserving that fire energy in you.. Rather than, switching to the so called nutritious diet or changing your diet plans based on the nutritive value, try working on correcting your agni/ fire, which will in-turn help you stay healthy even with the simplest possible food.
